Keyword Research Q&A, Round II

I have used tools like overture and wordtracker in the past but I must admit that I didn’t have much luck with them. It could be because the keywords I choose like jewelry store and silver jewelry were all highly competitive.

On the other hand, keywords like bridal jewelry and wedding jewelry, though competitive don’t seem to be as competitive as jewelry store or silver jewelry. I currently have a first page placement on Yahoo on Cheap bridal jewelry and Cheap bridal jewelry sets and get almost no traffic as a result. Is this common?

Even when I had a number #1 placement on Cheap Tiaras on Yahoo, I only got about 7-9 visitors to my website from those keywords. If it is truly a highly competitive keyword, why didn’t I see more traffic? Realistically, what sort of traffic can I expect from a first page placement. Is under 10 clicks a word normal or should I expect about 100 clicks per keyword?

Thank in advance?

Best Regards,

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Well I’m not a fan of the overture keyword tool because it combines plurals and singulars and I think as keywords that info should be kept separate. But as for WordTracker, I’m not sure I understand how your keywords being competitive have anything to do with the usefulness of the tool itself. Wordtracker is simply a great way to find all possible variations of certain keyword phrases, among other things.

I looked up the two keyword phrases you mentioned that you rank on Yahoo for (cheap bridal jewelry and cheap bridal jewelry sets) and found that Wordtracker predicts that the first gets about 30 searches per day and the other zero. Add this to the fact that Yahoo has a considerably smaller volume of searches than Google I would have to say, yes, this is normal. While Wordtracker numbers are often understated, when it comes to low search volume stuff they can be overstated as well. And these numbers reflect estimates that would include not just one engine but a combination of engines, so the actual number of searches being performed on any one engine, taking into consideration search volume for each engine, would be a fraction of that number.

I was unable to check stats for ‘Cheap Tiaras’ because wordtracker went down as I was researching, but keep in mind that competition and search volume are two completely different things. I’ve seen keywords with low search volume be highly competitive simply because those in the industry feel that its still a keyword worth ranking well for, despite the low volume.

There really is no correct answer to your last question. Every keyword phrase receives a different volume of searches so that plays a role in how much traffic you might get. The search engine itself must be taken into consideration when looking at traffic volumes. Google produces the lions share of traffic for a keyword equally ranked on it and MSN and Yahoo. In fact, most people would willingly give up both a #1 Yahoo and MSN ranking in exchange for a top 10 Google ranking. And finally, what displays in the search result also makes a difference. If the #5 listing looks more compelling than your #1 listing then you’ll lose clicks to them.

[If you got your own questions that you’re willing to allow me to share on this blog, feel free to email me at stoney @ polepositionmarketing.com]

Stoney deGeyter is the author of The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!. He is the founder and CEO of Pole Position Marketing, a web presence optimization firm whose pit crew has been velocitizing websites since 1998. In his free time Stoney gets involved in community services and ministries with his “bride enjoy” and his children. Read Stoney’s full bio.